Tag Archives: not cool

Well actually I think its incredibly creepy, and I don’t think I’m alone in that assessment. So, the article was published in the Age, but taken from mashable.com – which I don’t read and today cannot be bothered investigating further. I’ll use The Age article for basis and go on rambles from there.

What happens when you mix male gamers, pretty girls, and a social platform where girls that connects the two for a price? The answer is GameCrush, which has just opened to the public.

GameCrush first made headlines in March when it entered public beta. The site hooks up “Players” (mostly nerdy males) with “PlayDates” (mostly young females) to play everything from Call of Duty to simple arcade games. Players can choose to play either Xbox 360 games or just a simple browser-based game.

Initially this does not seem all bad. The idea of “Play Dates” sounds nice, like something you’d take your children along to and getting people together to share common interests is a good way to meet people. But only if it were that simple. The article continues.

Users of GameCrush have four basic options for making connections with PlayDates. … The Edge is this service’s version of a red-light district.

There is a catch, of course. PlayDates don’t crush their controllers for free; it costs $US0.60 per minute to have a pretty girl sniping with (or at) you.

So there is a “red-light” district AND even just to play with “pretty girl[s]” you need to start paying. And this is where it is creepy – in effect this is purchasing time with someone, making their time, attention and their appearance a commodity. Which is pretty much what prostitution is. It still gets worse:

And before you ask, yes, you’ll find girls that are willing to do more than just play games if you ask nicely. Part of the reason for this is the service’s points system; Players are expected to tip points to PlayDates, who can then trade them to get real cash. Simply put, there’s a big incentive for PlayDates to “do more” to earn more points.

While reading this I kept thinking of “gentlemen’s clubs” where for extra you can get private lap dances or private shows… and where some women will go further depending on the venue. Is this really that much different?

Male geekdom already has big issues with the way women are viewed and this is not helping that at all. The whole “Play Date” thing would be nice, if money weren’t exchanging hands and if the mostly female participants were not likely to be pressured to go further than just playing a game. Sadly this type of enterprise just continues adding to the women are objects and can be owned, especially when you get to pay for them.